The Demands of Pre – Employment Screenings

Michael Sanchez, BA, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology

Police psychologists are hired to help mitigate problems by intervening in four domains: Assessment, intervention, operational support, and organizational consultation (Trompetter, 2011). The assessment domain includes: psychological pre-employment screenings, fitness for duty evaluations, test development, evaluation of high risk assignments. This current study will focus on the assessment domain, specifically, on pre-employment screenings. One of the more overlooked aspects of the selection process is the influence of demand characteristics (Orne, 1959). Demand characteristics as described by Orne are factors that contribute to participant’s awareness of what the researcher is attempting to study or anticipates finding, and what this suggests for how they are to behave in accordance to that information. In application to police pre – employment screenings this may play a major role in making decisions about what candidates to hire.